Just call me Batwoman

 The scritch-scritch-scritching between the walls was waking me in the middle of the night. At first, I was quite convinced that it was a squirrel, climbing the back wall of the cottage, entering through the last remaining unfinished section of the house and burrowing between the walls under the gabled roof. When I heard the noise, I made a fist and pounded the wall until, like a rowdy neighbour, it finally stopped. But I was wrong. It wasn’t a squirrel. It was a bat.

One night, I heard the noise coming from the closet. I opened the huge barn doors and out flew my little noisy friend. S/he soared awkwardly around the room, confused by the cabinets in its centre and the mosquito nets hanging over the beds. Finally she found a comfortable roost on the rafter, where she sat and stared at me. My heart pounding from the adrenalin, I remembered my father’s advice. I turned all the lights off inside, turned the patio light on, and slid the door open. Immediately a swarm of mosquitos and other bugs formed a cloud under the porch light. The bat flapped out the door and into the night to enjoy an easy meal. I slid the door closed and went back to bed, my heart rate returning to normal.

Two hours later I was awakened by the soft BOP of something against my forehead. The bat was back. And this time she was IN THE MOSQUITO NET WITH ME, flapping around aimlessly. She had been using me for bait! She must have been as alarmed as I was because when I opened the net she flew straight to the patio door as if asking to be let out. She didn’t return that night.

I shared my bat invasion story online and a friend offered me a spare bat house. Yes! That’s exactly what I needed, I thought. Four of us sat on the balcony that night and watched the bat swooping overhead, consuming her 1,000 mosquitoes per hour. I definitely want her to stay. Just not in my cottage. I can do without the toxic bat droppings turning to guano dust and polluting my environment.

The tiny little bat shack (about the size of a Kleenex box, open at the bottom), came with instructions. It said we should install the house about 4 metres off the ground on a structure that is 20 feet away from anything else, facing South-East. I hauled the ladder out and had the Farmer climb up and nail the house to a tree that had no low branches to confuse the blind bats. I took a picture (as you do), and posted it online.

Immediately I was scorned for my bat house placement. Apparently it cannot be on a tree, not because of branches, but predators. It needs to be painted with flat black non-toxic paint to gather heat or the 24 bats that can fit inside (24?!) will freeze to death. Ok. Back up the ladder we go.

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